In a called meeting held on Thursday, June 27, the Choctaw County Board of Supervisors approved a Memorandum of Understanding with Polo Custom Products which will allow Polo personnel to access and assess the old Hardwire building which Polo has shown great interest in leasing.
Currently no lease agreement has been signed, but it is the intention of both the County and Polo to enter into a lease agreement.
In other action the Board rejected bids on the Pisgah Road project and the Jerusalem Road project. Advertisements for new bids will be issued, with those bids to be opened during a regularly scheduled Board meeting on Monday, August 5.
County to get federal PILT funds
From Press & Staff Reports
Choctaw County will receive an allocation through a Department of the Interior program that helps counties with federal lands and installations.
U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), on June 20, announced that Mississippi will receive $2.16 million through the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program for 2019.
The FY2019 PILT payments going to 72 Mississippi counties range in value from $245,653 for Lafayette County to $111 for Noxubee County. The payments are issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior to counties with tax-exempt, federally owned lands, water projects and some military installations.
Choctaw County’s payment for 12,919 federal acres will be $12,051.
“PILT appropriations are intended to help defray some of the tax revenue lost by counties that host national forests, wildlife refuges and some military installations,” Hyde-Smith said.
“Mississippi isn’t like some western states where the federal government owns most of the land, but our state does support a variety of federal interests, which makes counties eligible for some assistance,” she said.
Hyde-Smith serves on the Senate Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the PILT program.
The PILT program is administered by the Office of the Secretary of the Interior. The payments, which vary from year to year, are issued using a formula based on population, revenue-sharing payments and the amount of federal land in a county.
